


Escape A Christmas Carol

by ETNMystic



Category: A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens, Escape the Night (Web Series)
Genre: Christmas Eve, Gen, but screw it, get ready for probably the most anachronistic version of this story, i know it's past christmas, i mean the story's in the public domain, so why not?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-11
Updated: 2021-01-11
Packaged: 2021-03-16 03:48:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,623
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28700181
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ETNMystic/pseuds/ETNMystic
Summary: Destorm Power has never cared for Christmas or for those who suffered. But a single-night's visit from his late partner and three other ghosts may just change all of that.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 7





	Escape A Christmas Carol

Wellens was dead. There was no doubt about that. Wellens was laid to rest, gone forever it seemed. Seven long years ago, on the eve of December 24th, Wellens had died in his sleep, and Power had been the only one at his funeral, stoic as ever.

They were business partners, to be sure, but they soon became close friends and bonded over their work. Unfortunately they also shared the same vice; greed. The business was Power and Wellens, a money-lending firm. But even after Wellens died, Power didn’t change the name. No one dared to ask him why. Matter of fact, all who knew of him, if they could help it, steered clear from him. Yet the times being what they were, they couldn’t avoid having to lend money from him. And when they couldn’t pay up, Power simply threw them out.

Power himself was a stone-cold and hard soul, solitary as a bear and just as gruff. He cared not for the poor nor for the needy, only for those who could pay their dues when it was time. And even then, whether they could or not, it didn’t matter what happened to them. They could freeze in the cold and he wouldn’t so much as bat an eye. Children of all ages warned those new to the city and to life to venture away from his business, if they could help to do so. No woman ever stopped to visit, lest it was with her husband for a loan. No friends amongst the living and hardly any family for this man. If there were any, he would've likely driven them away by now.

On the eve of December 24th, Christmas Eve of all nights, Power was dealing with a late payer.

“Please Mr. Power, sir, I promise to pay it back in full,” the payer pleaded.  
“I just need more time. My wife’s sick, you know, and the loan’s saved her life. If we have nowhere to go, what then? She’ll die if we get evicted.”

Power looked up from his lending book and glared at the late payer with icy eyes.

“Mr. Haag, it’s none of my concern what happens. I just know that you haven’t paid back your loan, and I won’t give you anymore time. One month is long enough.”

“It’s not, sir. I’m having a hard time finding a job to make ends meet as it is. How am I supposed to—?”

“I told you, it’s none of my concern. Now I will be sure to notify the hospital—“

“No please!”

Power got up from his seat and grabbed ahold of the trembling man by the collar, dragging him to the door.

“Time! Time is all I need! Just a little! Please, sir, you can’t—“

Mr. Haag soon found the icy ground hit against him before the door clanged shut behind him like a funeral bell.

“Late payers,” Power huffed as his shoes clicked against the polished wood.  
“They know what they signed up for. It’s not my fault they don’t meet the deadline. And stop that chattering, Cratchit!”

He snapped at a small corner where a young and scrawny man in black hair sat at a small desk by the window.

“Yes, Mr. Power, sir,” he shivered before diving back into the books.

Alex Cratchit, Mr. Power’s clerk. A timid and kind young man, overworked and paid hardly enough to live, let alone to feed his family. He was placed in the coldest spot of the freezing firm. Power always kept the heat off, in both the summer and in the winter. All Alex had to keep himself even a little warm was a small coal fire and a candle. He’d tried to imagine them to radiate more heat, but the oppressive atmosphere of the money-lending firm made it difficult to imagine anything. So there he was, stuck in a freezing corner, by himself. The only true warmths that kept him going were his family and, in December, Christmas.

His quill was trembling against the book as he calculated the debts those that still needed to pay off loans and by what date, including interest, when the door swung open.

“Uncle!”

The clerk was startled so suddenly that his quill skidded across the book and onto the floor. In his tiny space, on his rickety wooden stool, he did his best to reach for it without breaking anything as the voice, bright and cheery, stepped inside.

“Hey, what’s up, Uncle Destorm?” It was Power’s nephew, baby-faced and cheery with tanned skin.

“Merry Christmas!”

As stoic as he was, Power had also been slightly shocked by his nephew’s sudden appearance.

“Ah!” he scoffed.  
“Bullshit.”

“What?” his nephew laughed.  
“C’mon, you’re not serious, are you?”

“I am serious. _Merry_ Christmas, why are you so happy? You’re poor enough.”

“Uno reverse card, Uncle Destorm,” the nephew declared.  
“Why are you so grumpy? You’re rich enough.”

Power didn’t have any retort, so his signature “Ah” followed by a sharp “Bullshit” felt sufficient.

“Ah, c’mon!” his nephew chuckled as he tried to give him a loving pat on the back.  
“Don’t be such a downer, Uncle Destorm.”

“What else can I be?” he retorted, pushing the nephew away.  
“When I live in a shitty world like this, one full of idiots. Fuck Merry Christmas; it’s just another day of book-balancing and people paying loans a day too late. If I had it my way, idiots who go around even thinking ‘Merry Christmas’ ought to be yeeted into a pot of goose fat and then into a mass grave with holly through his heart!”

“Uncle! That’s dark!”

“Now listen here, nephew. You keep your Christmas spirit to yourself and I’ll keep mine to myself. You don’t see anyone bothering the Church of Satan about how they celebrate Christmas, do you? Why bother with my Christmas spirit?”

“But Uncle Destorm, that’s just it. You _don’t_ keep any Christmas spirit.”

“So then let me leave it alone. What good has Christmas ever done for you anyway? You make no profit from it. Matter of fact, you lose all of what you earn during the rest of the year.”

“Uncle, you can’t profit off of everything,” the nephew exclaimed.  
“And I _haven’t_ profited off of everything, including Christmas. But the way I see it, it’s a time to spend with loved ones and a time to spread kindness, a time to further open our hearts and help the less fortunate. So what if I don’t get any money from it? Seeing people's happiness and joy is compensation enough. Christmas gives people the motivation to help those in need. It gives people hope, myself and my wife included, my children included. So even though I’ve never gotten any money from it, it still does me good and I know it will _always_ do me good. I say ‘Merry Christmas!’”

An involuntary round of clapping came from the corner. Alex had stood up from his books and applauded the nephew’s speech, a smile of excitement upon his face. But soon seeing the gravity on his employer’s face, he stopped and poked at his fire, his smile quickly fading.

“Another sound out of _you_ ,” Power spoke to the clerk.  
“And my Christmas present to you will be removing you from your position. Understood?”

The clerk nodded quickly and returned to his books before Power turned to his nephew.

“I gotta admit,” he chuckled bitterly.  
“You’re a powerful speaker. I don’t know why you didn’t go into government or some shit.”

“Hey, c’mon, Uncle Destorm!” the nephew said, still in good spirits despite everything.  
“Why don’t you come over and have Christmas dinner with us tomorrow? Why don’t you come see us?”

“Oh, I’ll see you,” he replied coldly, glaring the boy down.  
“I’ll see you in the ninth circle of Hell.”

“Chill out, Uncle! Why did you say that?”

Power sighed.

“Why the hell did you get married?”

His nephew sighed.

“Because I fell in love, of course.”

“Because you fell in love,” he growled.  
“The only thing worse than…. _merry Christmas._ You’re an even bigger fool than I thought. Get out of my sight!”

“Whoa, chill out, Uncle. Why can’t we be friends?”

“Get out of my sight!”

“We’ve never fought, you know,” the nephew replied as he made his way back to the door.  
“I’ve made my homage to Christmas, whatever the Dickens that is, and I’m gonna keep that spirit! So Merry Christmas, Uncle Destorm!”

“Get out of my sight!”

“And a Happy New Year!”

“Get out of my sight!”

The nephew left without an angry word, only saying one more “Merry Christmas” to the clerk, adding to the warmth within him.

"That stupid clerk with a wife, talking about a Merry Christmas," Power muttered under his breath as he returned to his books.  
"At this rate, I'm gonna end up retiring to a mental hospital or some shit."

The nephew's leaving let in a set of two gentlemen.

"Hi, uh, Power and Wellens', is that right?" one asked.  
"Who are we speaking to? Mr. Power or Mr. Wellens?"

"Mr. Wellens," Power replied firmly.  
"Has been dead for seven damn years right down to the date. Why are you here?"

The second gentleman cleared his throat.

"Well, you see Mr. Power," he said.  
"It's customary to give a little to those in need. So many people don't have the most common comforts or even the bare necessities."

"Are there no prisons? No workhouses?" Power huffed.

"I wish there weren't, but there are."

"The Poor Law? The Treadmills? Are they still in effect?"

"Yes, ever still."

"Oh, I was afraid something'd stopped them from being useful. I'm glad to hear otherwise."

"Well, the thing is," said the first gentlemen.  
"They don't take care to spread Christmas cheer or charity for the body or mind: a few of us are working to raise a fund to give the poor some food and drinks, and someplace warm. Abundance and Want are very present at this time, you know? Anyhow, how much should we put you down for?"

"Nothing," the miser replied without a moment's hesitation.

This confused the two gentlemen.

"So you'd like to remain anonymous?"

"I'd like to be left the hell alone. You asked and I've given you my answer. My money supports the places I have mentioned and if these people are so poor, they can go there."

"Well, uh, a lot of people would actually rather die than go there."

Power huffed.

"Then they'd better do it quickly," he replied bluntly.  
"All the better to have less unnecessary and useless people. Also, I didn't know that."

"Well, you do now."

"Even so, it's not any of my goddamn business. A man needs to know his business and no one else's, and I'll have you know that mine already keeps me well occupied. Goodbye and good riddance."

At this point, they more than understood this to be a useless endeavor, so they bid him good day and went on to their next stop. 

It began to darken, and much of the city noise that so annoyed Power to the core had begun to dissipate. All that was heard from the outside were the occasional church bells and the whistle of the winter wind. On the inside, there wasn't so much a sound more than the quills scribbling down in their books with the occasional page turn. It was near silence, and Power much rather like it that way. The church bells he could tolerate; they were a necessity of city life, as almost no one could see the large chapel clock from where they were. They'd have to scale the city buildings to the highest roof top to even see the clock, and then they'd have to jump all around to find a good spot to see the clock hands. None of that could be done without a likely-no, certain-injury or even death from attempting it. 

Nonetheless, much of the afternoon was passing without so much as a small noise here and there. Despite the silence, Power was still stewing in his temper. What on earth were people thinking? Merry Christmas. Fools, the lot of them. And when he heard the voice of a caroler sing from outside his door

_“God bless you, merry gentleman!_   
_May nothing you dismay!”_

Power slammed the door open with such a bang of fury that the singer ran away in terror. 

Soon the hour of closing was coming upon the firm, and Power stood up from his stool as the clerk put out his coal furnace and candle.

"Let me guess," Power huffed.  
"You want all day off tomorrow."

Alex nodded.

"I mean, if it's okay with you."

"Well, it's not!"

Power slammed his hand on the desk so loudly that the Clerk swore he felt his heart jump into his throat.

"And it's not fair either. If I was to cut your wages, you'd think you were being robbed, right?"

Alex smiled faintly.

"And yet you don't think I'd feel robbed if I was to pay you to take the day off."

The clerk gulped and looked down at the ground, his voice even more meek than usual.

"Well, it's only once a year, sir."

Hearing this, Power sighed, shaking his head.

"No one ever thinks about me getting robbed; it's a stupid excuse to do so once a year. But I gotta, so go ahead. Just be here earlier on the 26th, got it?"

The clerk promised he would, and Power huffed as he left with a solemn and cynical air. The office was closed in a matter of minutes; the clerk put on his comforter, (as he couldn't afford a coat) happily slid down a lane of ice, and then ran to his town as fast as his legs could carry him to play a game of "Blindman's Buff" with the boys.

Meanwhile as Power passed, folks were preparing for the evening. The winter air didn't move him in the slightest. No temperatures could, neither the hottest hots nor the coldest colds, and the air was quiet, just as he liked it.

A few moments later.

"Excuse me, sir!" 

A woman called from high on a ladder leaning against a lamppost. She was rather short and held the lighter with a trembling hand. as her feet struggled against the rung.

"Um, sorry to bother you, but the ladder's a little slippery, and I'd really appreciate the help---"

Without a word, Power turned and walked away. She knew what she was getting into when she got the job. 

A few moments later.

"Oh, sir! Would you mind?"

A young man was carrying a few small turkeys along with some packages. 

"I don't mean to interrupt you, but the ice is rather slippery and all of this is _really_ heavy---"

Without a word, Power turned and walked away. He knew what he was getting himself into when he chose to carry all of that.

A few moments later.

"Sir! I beg your pardon."

An old woman, frail and trembling, rasped out as she leaned weakly against a lamppost, reaching out to the miser.

"I don't wish to waste your time, but I have nowhere to go this Christmas, no food, no warmth. If you'd be so kind as to give even just a little---"

Without a word, Power turned and walked away. She knew what she was getting herself into when she ended up on the streets.

Power stopped at his usual depressing tavern to order his usual depressing supper. Now having read all of the newspapers, the rest of his evening was spent looking at one of his pocket banker-books before heading to his depressing home to go to bed. He lived in chambers that once belonged to Wellens; the entirety of the house was deserted and gloomy, making it difficult for anyone to imagine that it once held children who would be ever so merry and gay during the year, let alone on Christmas. There was a ghostly silence throughout it, for Power was the house's only occupant. The other rooms were loaned out as offices; it was another way Power could make money. 

Now during the nighttime, the gated front yard was so darkened by both the night and by misery himself that even Power, who had travelled back and forth from the door to the gate and back again later that night, had to fumble around to the door. The moment he did, he came face-to-face with his knocker. It bore nothing remarkable, except that it was very large. Bear in mind, Power had also not even thought of his late partner since the mention of him that afternoon. So someone make sense of the fact that Power, with the key at the edge of the lock, saw in the knocker without having seen it transform, not a knocker, but instead Wellens' face.

Wellens' face. There was no doubt that it was his. It gave Power a cold, but also vacant and ghostly, expression; one that Wellens had often held mere weeks before his passing, as if he could see death just off in the distance, beckoning him and at the same time gliding ever closer each day and night. His eyes also held a drop of horror in it, as if he saw his fate just ahead of it, that horror had seemed to grow with each waning moment days before he passed. Power grasped the side of his head, attempting to bring himself back to his senses. His eyes scrunched shut as if a torch were being shone right into his eyes. Yet once he opened them again, Wellens' face was no longer there. Instead it was simply a knocker. 

Power had indeed been startled, the blood in his face draining as if water out of a strainer. He was still attempting to make sense of what he'd just witnessed. Had that truly been Wellens? Power had heard passings of spirits possessing objects and project their faces upon them. He had merely passed them off as fairytales, a waste of his time. So in spite of his shock, he looked to his mind for a more logical approach.

"Probably just indigestion," he reasoned before he reached for the key. 

And yet, Power had been so startled that he had not heard the brass key fall from the lock. In the dark of near-midnight, he fumbled around for it on the cold stone porch, almost as cold as he was. His hands were numb to the freezing stone, however, and only shivered when the stinging-cold brass hit his fingers. Yet even then, it was merely a tingle in his finger tips. Eventually he'd placed the key into the lock, turned it, and opened the door to enter a foyer covered in dust. Half of his mind desired to check the knocker once again. Perhaps he had not been seeing things, after all. Perhaps Wellens' face was there. However the other half of his mind, the one which took a more logical approach to life, told him it was still a mere case of indigestion. He pulled the key out with resolute, gave a huff of finality, and slammed the door, the sound echoing around the manor. 

Call it fumbling for balance or simply climbing the stairs, but Power dared not use a light. Darkness was cheap, just as he liked it. He would save the light for his late-night broth, as he had a slight head-cold. But before he went to ready himself for bed, he decided to humor the paranoia. He checked every room he could, just to assure that small nook of his mind that it was mere imagination due to indigestion, or perhaps due to his head cold. Not in the cellar, none in the kitchen, nothing in the closet of his room except for his clothing and a few accessories; he shamefully even checked under his bed, as though he were a child assuring the absence of a monster underneath; every room and everything in them was untouched and in its proper place. But even so, why was there still this nagging pull at the back of his brain? One that was telling him that he was not alone. 

Whatever it was, he was determined to keep it at the back of his brain. So after locking his door, he got into his slippers, along with his nightgown and cap, before heading to his fireplace to stoke a low fire and to light a small candle. The fireplace had been designed by an Italian merchant showcasing passages and scriptures in its pictures; Cain and Abel, the Hebrew Children, Jonah, the apostles and Christ, Lydia of Thyatira, as many as could have fit upon it. And much to his shock, if it had been blank before with the faces of these people, every face now displayed Wellens'.

"Bullshit," he mumbled, and yet the anxiety had begun to re-emerge.

Perhaps he just needed to clear his head. Getting up he paced about the room, hoping to get the blood flowing. After several pacings, he threw his back as his head hit against the back of his chair when his glance fell upon a bell, unused for years, hanging in his room. Ever so slowly, much to his disbelief, it began to swing. At first he heard not a sound, but then it began to clang out as if it were a funeral bell, as did every bell in the house. No one knows how long this lasted, maybe a minute, but it felt an hour. Only when the bells stopped in sync, there was not silence. Instead there was a clanking noise coming from the lowest level of the house, sounding as though one were carrying a chain. Something then occurred to Power; he had heard from somewhere that ghosts in haunted houses were described as dragging cold and heavy chains. 

With an echoing thud, the cellar door flung open and the clanking sound began to come closer, to the main floor, up the stairs, and soon heading right for the bedroom door. 

"Nah, this is bullshit!" Power exclaimed.   
"This ain't real! I'm not gonna believe it. It's not there. I see nothin'. I know nothin'. I hear absolutely---."

However the blood drained from his face when it passed through his door and into the room. His dim fire and candle flame both shook as if to say "Oh shit! That's Jesse's ghost!"

There was no mistaking it; it was the same face that Power had seen each work day, each day when the firm opened for business and each night when it came time for closing, that is until seven years ago. His face looked slightly sunken, as though seven years gone had done a number on him. His eyes were ghostly, likely as he was an apparition, his hair disheveled and black as his heart, if not for the haunting glow, giving it a tint of grey. Around his face, from his chin and tied at the top of his head, was a handkerchief. Around his waist was a long chain, the links seemingly digging into it. And on each end was a small box that Power recognized as one he kept the coins he collected. In spite of what he saw before him, Power still didn't believe what he was seeing and tried to reason with his senses.

"Wait a minute," he exclaimed.  
"Who the fuck are you?"

"Nah bro," the ghost shook its head, its voice sounding exactly like Wellens'.  
"Ask me who the fuck I _was._ "

"Okay, who the fuck _were_ you?"

"When I was alive, I was your business partner, Jesse Wellens."

"Can you.....can you sit down?"

"Yeah."

"Do it then."

Jesse, or was it a shade in disguise? Power wasn't sure. Whatever it was, it sat upon the bed. 

"You don't think it's me, do you?" the ghost asked.

"No shit."

"You got any proof besides your senses?"

"Nope."

"Then why are you calling them bullshit?"

"Cuz little things can fuck them up; indigestion or, you know a headcold. Probably indigestion; you're probably just some bit of meat or potato or cheese or whatever. There's more gravy than grave about you, dude."

The ghost had to suppress a chuckle.

"Bro, where did you get that pun from? The circus? You gotta up the pun game. I mean, to be fair, you never were too funny when I was alive, so who the fuck cares?"

Power had to do something to prove that it was just a joke of some kind. 

"You see this toothpick?" he asked, picking up one nearby.

"Yeah?"

"But you're not looking at it."

"But it see it. What's your point?"

"All I gotta do is swallow this, and I'll just have to spend eternity being chased by pissed-off goblins."

"Bro, don't be an idiot!" the ghost exclaimed in fright as it rattled the chains at a volume so hauntingly loud that it caused Power to drop the toothpick. It then removed the bandage from its head and to Power's disbelief, its jaw dropped on its own."

"Holy shit..." Power whispered under his breath, his eyes wide with fear.   
"Bro, why are you messing with me?!"

"You believe me now?" 

Power nodded fearfully.

"Yeah, I believe it's you now. No doubt. Legit. But why are you here on this earth, and why are you here to visit me? I know you ain't here for a sleepover."

Jesse gave a sad smirk as he retied the bandage holding his jaw in place.

"It's mandated that everyone who exists should go around and help to relieve pain and give joy to peeps, whoever they are, even ungrateful and cynical bastards like you."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa! You were just as ungrateful and cynical of a bastard as I was."

"You still are, and even more than I ever was. And you're also a rude dude. Lemme finish what I was gonna say!"

"Okay, damn."

"Anyway, if you don't do that when you're alive, your spirit does it when you're dead, and you're forced to watch what you could've done back in life, but didn't. It's like when you look back on all of the homework you didn't do and you gotta see other kids do it and succeed and become everything you didn't. It sucks, my dude, only this time you get to see the happiness you never shared and now you can't share. I've done this for seven damn years. It doesn't get any less painful, by the way."

"Okay....but what the fuck's with the chain?"

"Oh this? Yeah, they gave this to me when I got yeeted into Hell seven years ago. They put it around my waist, told me I'd actually made it myself. It's not even a gold chain, nothing like what Jay-z or Kanye would wear, so it only sucks even more."

"What the hell you mean you made it yourself?"

"Well at first, I was too busy thinking 'holy shit, I'm dead' to pay attention to the reason why, but I found out that the chain is all of my guilt, my greed, and my cruelty, each link was a different act of either or of all three when I was alive, so in a sense, I made each link by myself. Lemme tell you something, bro; you've got one too, and in the past seven years, you've wracked up a lot of links. Matter of fact, you got at least six more of them today."

Hearing this, Power was frightened. Was this the fate he was destined to fall prey to? Was he supposed to carry all of that and more?

"C-C'mon, man," he exclaimed.  
"That's bullshit, right? Tell me something good, something that can make me feel comfortable, even just a bit."

"Sorry, bro. I've got nothing. And I can't stay very long either. They don't let me. I've got a trek planned for me, just like the other ghosts; actually it's more like exercises, only all of this iron doesn't give you any muscles. You can't get muscles when you're dead. No leg day, man. And they don't give a fuck if I get tired. We gotta wander around all the damn time. But somehow, I can't really go beyond the limits of where all of our coin gets counted."

"You.....you're going slow, aren't you?" Power said, trying to remain in a business-like demeanour. 

"Slow? That's the understatement of the anachronistic century."

"And you've been goin' around like this for seven years?"

"Non-stop."

"And you're forced to watch what you missed out on."

His partner's face contorted into an expression of melancholy and regret.

"It's like a movie of torture, except it's in real time, all the time. This ain't school, man. I can't do a make-up assignment. I gotta carry all of this stupid regret."

"But you were good at business."

"Humanity should've been my business. And because it's Christmas, I feel even shittier. I have to watch even more joy I'm missing out on."

Power was alarmed to hear the shade go on in this way, feeling himself trembling more than humanly possible. Suddenly his partner's expression became one of urgency.

"You gotta listen to me, man. This shit I'm about to tell you is important."

His fear dragged his attention completely to his partner once he heard this. 

"Okay, tell me then."

"You've got a chance to escape my fate. Honestly I'm pissed no one told me about this, but I'm passing this to you. You're gonna be haunted by three ghosts tonight, all new to this, so go easy on them."

Power couldn't believe what he was hearing. There was still hope for him after all? He had a chance to avoid wandering in chains? And yet....three more ghosts?

"I'm pretty sure I've been haunted enough tonight, man."

His partner continued on as though he hadn't spoke.

"At the stroke of one, you're gonna meet the Ghost of Christmas Past, who's adorable by the way. I got to talk to her a bit before going to see you and she's so damn sweet."

"Wait, what?"

"Stroke of two, you get the Ghost of Christmas Present. He's kind of a nerd, but still pretty cool."

"Can you maybe just slow down a little?"

"And then at three, you're gonna meet the Ghost of Christmas......uh....she got a weird title....Christmas Yet-To-Come? Yet-To-Be?"

Now this was the one that particularly confused him.

"You mean Future?"

"Eh, it's all kinda the same to me."

"And that's this chance?"

"Yep."

"Uh....I think the fuck not."

"If you don't, you're gonna end up like me....and the others."

Hearing this, Power felt a lump form in his throat.

"O-Others?"

With this, Wellens summoned a chain from down below.

"Remember our friend, Mr. Dawson?"

With a yank, out came a desecrated skeleton with a chain around its neck. 

"Power," it chuckled with a deep and bloody grin.  
"Just as cynical as I remember."

"D-Dawson?" Power gulped as he began to hear quiet whistling sounds.

"He's still mean to the bone," Wellens chuckled darkly.

The sounds of whistling began to evolve into the sounds of moaning, becoming louder and louder by the second; they were the sounds of the tortured, of the damned, of those condemned to suffer for all eternity. 

"How about Arthur?"

Wellens yanked up a man who had a chain attached to his chest. With a single tug, a rock in the shape of a heart emerged at the end of it. Then a small click released it into Power's hands. It sent chills down his spine, both of fright and of how icy it was. 

"His heart's still as cold as stone, my dude."

From all directions, Power could hear thuds and cracks along with the wails of the condemned deceased. Then suddenly, out of nowhere, a bump appeared below him. To his shear horror, the bulging outline of a figure was scratching at him from beneath his floorboards. He was uncertain if the figure meant to attack him or to plead for his help; either way, he didn't want it anywhere near him. 

"Or maybe Cash."

Wellens pulled up a third, only to find that there was nothing on the end.

"Oh shit," he groaned.  
"I tried to attach it to his heart, but I forgot; he never had one."

Power's house was gradually turning into a sort of inferno, his own personal cacophony from the depths of Hell. 

_"Help me...."_

A voice rasped from all around the room. Power's heart was near to jumping from his throat as more figures showed themselves through the walls, bending them as if they were made of mere rubber. The fruitless cries for their salvation stabbed his eardrums so that he grasped the sides of his head around his ears. But just like their cries, there was no use to this. The sounds traveled through his skin and into his eardrums as if he had kept them open. In fact it sounded even worse.

"Jesse! What the fuck?" he cried out.

It was at this point that his colleague had begun to fade. His expression had hardened as he stared down the miser with a glare that made him feel as though he'd been frost-bitten.

"I told you, I don't got much time," he said firmly.  
"You gotta promise you'll let the ghosts visit you, or you'll be hearing this shit forever."

Power nodded vigorously as it became louder and louder and louder!

"Okay, okay! They can visit me, just get me out of this nightmare!"

And then.......silence.


End file.
